Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/168

 school from 1793 to 1798. He studied music under the Hon. John Spencer and Thomas Attwood [q. v.], the pupil of Mozart, and was assistant organist to the Female Orphan Asylum from 1810 to 1814. In 1814 he succeeded Robert Cooke (fl. 1793–1814) [q. v.] as organist of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, which post he resigned, on a pension, in March 1854. He was secretary of the re-established Concentores Sodales, which was dissolved in 1847, the wine becoming his property, and was elected a professional member of the Catch Club in 1827. Walmisley died on 23 July 1866, and was buried in the family grave at Brompton cemetery. In 1810 he married the eldest daughter of William Capon (1757–1827) [q. v.], draughtsman to the Duke of York. His eldest son, Thomas Attwood Walmisley [q. v.], whose ‘Cathedral Music’ he edited in 1857, predeceased him.

Walmisley composed fifty-nine glees, four of which gained prizes (see Spectator, 28 Aug. 1830). He also composed ‘six anthems and a short morning and evening service’ (n.d.), and ‘Sacred Songs,’ London, 1841. As a teacher he was well known; his most distinguished pupil is perhaps Dr. Edward J. Hopkins. A portrait of him, painted by MacCaul, is in the possession of his son, Mr. Arthur Walmisley.

[Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians; David Baptie's Sketches of the English Glee Composers; Barker and Stenning's Westminster School Reg.; private information supplied by his son, Mr. Arthur Walmisley.]  WALMODEN, AMALIE SOPHIE MARIANNE, (1704-1766). [See .]

WALMSLEY, JOSHUA (1794–1871), politician, son of John Walmsley, builder, was born at Liverpool on 29 Sept. 1794, and educated at Knowsley, Lancashire, and Eden Hall, Westmoreland. On the death of his father in 1807 he became a teacher in Eden Hall school, and on returning to Liverpool in 1811 took a similar situation in Mr. Knowles's school. He entered the service of a corn merchant in 1814, and at the end of his engagement went into the same business himself, and ultimately acquired a competency. He was an early advocate of the repeal of the duty on corn, and was afterwards an active worker with Cobden, Bright, and others in the Anti-Cornlaw League. In 1826 he took the presidency of the Liverpool Mechanics' Institution, and about the same time there began his intimacy with George Stephenson, in whose railway schemes he was much interested, and with whom he joined in purchasing the Snibstone estate, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where rich seams of coal were found. He was elected a member of the Liverpool town council in 1835, and did excellent work in improving the police, sanitary, and educational affairs of the borough; was appointed mayor in November 1838, and knighted on the occasion of the queen's marriage. With Lord Palmerston he unsuccessfully contested Liverpool in the liberal interest in June 1841. He retired to Ranton Abbey, Staffordshire, in 1843, and at the general election of 1847 was elected M.P. for Leicester, but was unseated on petition. He started the National Reform Association about this time, and was its president and chief organiser for many years. In 1849 he was returned as M.P. for Bolton, Lancashire, but in 1852 exchanged that seat for Leicester, where his efforts on behalf of the framework knitters had made him popular. He lost this seat in 1857, when he practically retired from public life, although he retained the presidency of the National Sunday League from 1856 to 1869.

He died on 17 Nov. 1871 at his residence at Bournemouth, leaving issue. His wife, whom he married in 1815, and whose maiden name was Madeline Mulleneux, survived him two years.

[Life, by his son, Hugh Mulleneux Walmsley, 1879, with portrait; Dod's Parliamentary Companion, 1850; Free Sunday Advocate, December 1871.]  WALMSLEY, THOMAS (1763–1805), landscape-painter, was descended from a family of good position at Rochdale, Lancashire, but was born in Ireland in 1763, his father, Thomas Walmsley, captain-lieutenant of the 18th dragoons, being quartered there with his regiment at the time. He quarrelled with his family, and came to London to earn his living. He studied scene-painting under Columba at the opera-house, and was himself employed there and at Covent Garden Theatre, and at the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin. In 1790 he began to exhibit landscapes in London, where he resided until 1795, when he retired to Bath. He sent many pictures to the Royal Academy, chiefly views in Wales; but in 1796, the last year in which he exhibited, three views of Killarney. He painted chiefly in body-colour. His trees were heavy and conventional, and he had no capacity for drawing figures, but he was skilful in painting skies, especially with a warm evening glow, which was well reproduced in the coloured aquatints by